And it’s not just that Portman rolls deep with the Bush clan. More broadly it’s that he reeks of “establishment”, a smell that wrinkles the nose of even many within the Republican party these days. Romney has been very careful not to associate himself too closely to Republicans (or anyone else) in Washington throughout the campaign — witness his condemnation of the tax deal cut by congressional Republicans with President Obama in 2010. Putting Portman on the ticket runs totally counter to that strategy.

* Budget: Mention Portman’s name to any — literally, any — Democratic operative and they will immediately note that he was Bush’s budget director — he served from June 2006 through August 2007 — even as federal spending was shooting through the roof.

Democrats have already test-driven the budget/spending attack on Portman. During his 2010 Senate campaign, Portman was attacked by Democrats in an ad for overseeing “a spending spree that doubled the deficit.” (Portman won the race easily but that was due in large part to just how bad a candidate the Democratic nominee turned out to be.)

Wrote PolitiFact of the Democratic ad: “While we acknowledge that Portman isn’t the only factor — nor, perhaps, even the primary factor — in the course of both economic trends, we do think that in the middle of a campaign, challenging an opponent on his record in office is fair game.”

Portman allies, of course, reject that frame, noting that the one year Portman had the OMB job — 2007 — the budget deficit was $161 billion, a fraction of President Obama’s budget proposals. (Here’s Portman making a similar point.)

Still, politics is politics. And Portman was the face — at least for a time — of the Bush budget. Democrats will never let Romney forget that reality if Portman is the pick and, they believe, Portman on the ticket could help neutralize their own vulnerabilities on federal spending.

That wouldn’t be a problem except for the fact that Romney has already slogged through months of coverage about how he lacks the common touch. Given that, doubling down on the bland, middle-aged white guy quotient on the Republican ticket could be a major mistake.

And, remember that Republicans have long battled the perception that the GOP is a party of old(er) white men and, perhaps not coincidentally, have struggled mightily to win large percentages of minority voters — most notably Hispanics. (In 2008, Arizona Sen. John McCain took just 31 percent among Latino voters.)

Portman as vice presidential pick would do nothing to address Republicans’ mounting demographic problems — in fact he might help exacerbate them.